Watchmaker forced to apologise for offensive and distasteful advertising

Mariner Watches has issued a fulsome apology after advertising for its watches appeared to condone misogyny, oppression and even violence towards women and says the campaign images were posted to its US social media feed by one of its retail partners.

Three separate adverts have been shared across social media featuring men dominating women.

In one a woman looks like she is being forced to drink whiskey under the slogan: “Like whiskey and a beautiful woman, timepieces demand appreciation, you gaze first then indulge!!”

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A second image a man is holding a woman by the throat with an Instagram tag line by mariner_watches saying: “Elegance is good taste plus a dash of daring!”

In a third, two women are draped provocatively over a man with a caption by mariner_watches that says: “Fridays are for ______? Fill in the blank.”

On its Facebook page, Mariner Watches, which has a US office in Los Angeles, says: “Last week, one of our sellers posted a few pictures on our U.S. page. We recognise that some of our followers found these pictures offensive. We sincerely apologise for the incident and want to clarify that Mariner Watches did not approve this post. It was immediately removed once we saw the content of it. Mariner Watches strongly supports gender equality, and condemns all forms of violence. We thank our followers who brought this incident to our attention. Rest assured, we are taking every measure necessary in order to prevent this type of incident from occurring again.”

An additional apology on Mariner Watches’ USA website makes no mention of a seller posting the incriminating images. It reads: “On behalf of the Mariner Watches USA team, we would like to sincerely apologize, not just to our customers and followers, but to the entire population of women and men. Our recent ad campaign was offensive, distasteful and an act of poor judgement. We want to assure the public that Mariner does not promote sexism or violence against anyone and posting these pictures was a mistake that will not be made again.”

The campaign was shot by Los Angeles based Milan von Brünnis a Czech-born photographer who says his body of work offers an unique glimpse into the way he observes world around him. His work, according to his own website, is a celebration of natural beauty, especially beauty of the female form he often refers to as his “…bottomless well of creative inspiration.”

Mariner Watches’ Twitter and Instagram pages were not available this morning.